Bing Splits AI Training From AI Search Grounding
Microsoft's new controls will let you block AI training and still appear in AI answers, but the dates matter as much as the settings.
SEO
Google updates, ranking changes, new search features and the SEO tools that track them. We read the documentation and the data, then tell you what to check on your own site.
More SEO
Google Lets Restaurants Control Ordering Links in Business Profiles
Restaurants can now switch off individual ordering providers from their Google dashboard.
Discord Will Put Some Public Server Chats in Search Results
Some public Discord server chats are heading into search results, and server admins have until November 16 to decide what's public.
Google Expands AI Mode Ads as Search Revenue Growth Slows
More AI searches are bringing new ad placements, but Google's Q3 remarks gave no figure for traffic to websites.
Googlebot Must Now Follow Redirects to Find Your Favicon
John Mueller says Google rewrote the line so AI tools could debug missing favicons better.
Semrush Confirms Poisoned Google Results Are Hitting Rank Trackers
If a keyword dropped for no reason in the last two months, check Search Console before you change anything.
Google Search Central Docs, Late October: Spam, URLs, Controls
Three Search Central documentation changes in Google's updates log are dated October 21, 23 and 26.
Rank Math PRO 3.0.123 Shipped With a Backdoor for 11 Hours
Rank Math says to clean up before you install 3.0.124, so check your sites against the download window first.
About our SEO coverage
Google changes search thousands of times a year, and you'll never notice most of those changes. A few move your traffic overnight. This section is for the few, and for the quieter changes that add up over months.
- Google updates
- Core updates, spam updates and ranking changes, with rollout dates, the kinds of sites that rose or fell, and what to check before you change anything.
- Search features
- New result types, AI Overviews, Discover and Google News, and what each one does to the clicks you get.
- Search Console and Google's documentation
- New reports, changed guidelines and the quiet edits to Google Search Central pages that nobody announces.
- Bing and the rest
- Bing, IndexNow and the other engines that feed AI assistants their results. Small share, growing reach.
- SEO tools
- Launches and changes at Ahrefs, Semrush, Screaming Frog and the tools you use to track all of the above.
Whether you look after one blog or forty client sites, and whether your work is technical SEO, content or links, you'll find what changed and what to do on your own site here.